Congress to work with like-minded parties in LS: Sonia

IANSNew DelhiSeeing"winds of change"after the Gujarat Assembly and Rajasthan by-elections, Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Thursday said her party will work with like-minded parties to defeat the BJP in the next general elections which she felt could be held early. She also expressed confidence that the party would retain power in the Karnataka Assembly elections. "As for myself, as Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party, I will work with the Congress President and other colleagues in discussions with like-minded political parties to ensure that in the next election the BJP is defeated and India is restored to a democratic, inclusive, secular, tolerant and economically progressive path,"Gandhi said addressing the Congress Parliamentary Party here. Referring to the recent bye-elections in Rajasthan, which the party swept, and the Gujarat Assembly polls where it put up a creditable performance, Gandhi said:"We performed very creditably under tough circumstances in Gujarat and the (victories in the) just held by-elections in Rajasthan were huge. This shows that the winds of change are coming. "I am sure that very soon the election results in Karnataka too will underline the resurgence of the Congress,"she added. Extending her son Rahul Gandhi best wishes in his new role as the party chief and acknowledging that he was now also her boss, Gandhi said that the process of the party's revival has started under Rahul Gandhi. Sonia Gandhi hoped that the party workers and leaders would work with Rahul Gandhi with the same dedication as they did with her in her long tenure of 19 years. "We have elected a new Congress President and on your behalf and on my own, I wish him all the very best. He is now my boss, too. Let there be no doubt about that - and I know that all of you will work with him with the same dedication, loyalty and enthusiasm as you did with me. "I am confident that we will work cohesively under his leadership to revive our party's fortunes. That process has begun,"she said. Terming the 2014 electoral debacle of the party as an"aberration", she called upon party workers to channelise the"discontent"among people against the Modi government. "We have to be in a state of readiness for the national elections which are due in slightly over a year - and might well be called earlier as they were in 2004. No doubt 2014 was a severe setback, but I am convinced that it was an aberration. "Increasingly, the people of our country, people belonging to all sections of our society, are getting disillusioned with the present regime. It is for us to channel this discontent into support (for the opposition),"she said.

Srinagar Police in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday achieved a breakthrough by arresting five suspects who helped a Pakistani terrorist escape from a Srinagar hospital on Tuesday. Sources said ..

IANS New Delhi The BJP government is looking to make a"major assault"on the Constitution if the ruling party gets a majority in both the Houses of Parliament, says Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who feels the attack on ..

IANS New Delhi The father of Major Aditya Kumar, named in an FIR by Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir police in civilian killings during a firing incident, on Thursday moved the Supreme Court to quash the case because ..

IANS Chennai Actor Kamal Haasan, who is in the US, will meet key influencers from Tamil Nadu and explore a better future for the state. Kamal, who has announced his foray into politics, will be delivering a lecture at the ..

IANS Mumbai Malayalam film director Kamal is not a worried man even though his biopic on the very fiery author-poet Kamala Das has ignited debates and protests, as well as attracted an attempt to stop the film legally for ..